POETRY. ^49 



Meantime some rude Arion's restless hand 

 Wakes the brisk harmony that sailors love ', 

 A circle there of merry listeners stand. 

 Or to some well-known measure featly move, 

 Thoughtless, as if on shore they still were free to rove. 



Through Calpe's straits survey the steepy shore, 

 Europe and Afric on each other gaze ! 

 Lands of the dark-ey'd Maid and dusky Moor, 

 Alike beheld beneath pale Hecate's blaze : 

 How softly on the Spanish shore she plays. 

 Disclosing rock, and slope, and forest brown. 

 Distinct though darkening with her waning phase : 

 But Mauritania's giant shadows frown. 

 From mountain cliff to coast descending sombre down. 



'Tis night, when meditation bids us feel 

 We once have lov'd, though love is at an end: 

 The heart, lone mourner of its baffled zeal, 

 Though friendless now will dream it had a friend. 

 Who with the weight of years would wish to bend. 

 When Youth itself survives young Love and Joy ? 

 Alas ! when mingling souls forget to blend. 

 Death hath but little left him to destroy ! 

 Ah ! happy years ! once more who would not be a boy ? 



Thus bending o'er the vessel's laving side. 

 To gaze on Dian's wave-reflected sphere ; 

 The soul forgets her schemes of Hope and Pride, 

 And flies unconscious o'er each backward year : 

 None are so desolate but something dear. 

 Dearer than self, possesses or possess'd 

 A thought, and claims the homage of a tear ; 

 A flashing pang ! of which the weary breast 

 Would still, albeit, in vain, the lieavy heart divest. 



To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, 

 To slowly trace the forest's shady scene. 

 Where things that own not man's dominion dwell. 

 And mortal foot hath ne'er, or rarely been ; 

 To climb the trackless mountian all unseen. 

 With the wild flock that never needs a fold ; 

 Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean ; 

 This is not solitude ; 'tis but to hold 

 Converse with Nature's charms, and see her stores unroU'd. 



But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men. 

 To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess. 



And 



